Market goat show

Faith Academy senior Lacy Alexander doesn't want to think about what it will feel like when the arena lights dim and the two prized goats she's raised get carted away for cash.

The country girl would pick up every lost puppy or open her own zoo if her mom would permit it.

"If you think about it, you kind of keep them as long as you would a kid," she said, as her goats, Patches and ZigZag, meandered through a dusty pen outside her rural Victoria home.

But she understands that with life also comes death.

In the weeks leading up to the show, she's been acting like a proud mama, waking up at the crack of dawn to study a feed schedule she's created through trial and error.

She takes the creatures, wrapped in warm, colorful blankets, one-by-one to brace their calf muscles each day in what can only be described as a her secret weapon.

Her grandfather repurposed a child's play set specifically for the task behind the house. They climb aboard it with ease.

She said four years with the Rough Riders 4-H Club has taught her skills she'll soon apply toward a nursing degree at Schreiner University in Kerrville.

If anything, she said, health care is definitely an industry where there's no room for "I" in "Team."

"You have to have all those people behind you and in front of you saying, 'Hey, let's do this,'" Lacy said. "And, in 4-H, it's just like that. There's always parents who aren't my mom that come up and say, 'Hey, I know you're doing this, but can I show you how to do this better?'"